Google CEO to meet EPP chairman Manfred Weber

The chairman of the European People’s Party group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, will meet with Google CEO Sundar Pichai today at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Silicon Valley, Weber told POLITICO.

His message: Google needs to take EU regulation seriously.

“Europe is a huge market ” with 500 million potential customers, and if Google and other tech companies want to do business here, “they have to respect the rules we set” on data protection and competition law, Weber said.

Weber departed Sunday for a three-day-trip to California, where he will meet Facebook, Amazon and Uber representatives. He said he wanted to “listen and learn” about the tech industry and its financing models.

Weber’s trip comes at a critical time for Google, as it fights an anti-trust case filed last year by European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and as new rules for handling consumer data across the Atlantic were recently agreed on.

Weber will give a speech at the University of California’s Berkeley campus Wednesday focusing on Europe’s role in the world.

“I want to emphasize that Europe has to be taken into account. We must not and will not slumber the great developments of the future away,” he said.